I agree with my colleague Will Inboden that the Obama administration's renewed emphasis on the Pacific is the most important thing that it got right this year. Developments in the Asia-Pacific region are likely to be of the greatest consequence for the United States in coming decades, and the rise of China will most certainly pose a challenge to long-held American aims, including the protection of American territory, defense of allies, and security of the maritime commons. The region deserves greater attention than it has been receiving.

The "Pacific pivot" has, in truth, been a decade in the making. One need look no further than the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review to see that prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks the Bush administration understood the increasing importance of Asia. Moreover, the Obama administration's announcement of the basing of U.S. troops in Australia was an outgrowth of agreements reached by the Bush administration with the Howard government in Canberra.

I am concerned, however, about two aspects of the administration's new-found emphasis on Asia. First, it remains to be seen whether the administration's words will be backed by actions, particularly in the military realm. The Defense Department has intimated that forces in the Pacific will not face the kind of cuts that appear to be in store for the rest of the military. That's fine, if true. However, sustaining American power in the Pacific will require more than the status quo; it will demand an increase in American sea and air power in the region, as well as the acquisition of new capabilities, including the long-delayed modernization of the U.S. bomber fleet. Such new investment will be necessary to demonstrate to America's allies, friends, and competitors that the Obama administration's words are to be taken seriously. 

The second concern has to do with what the administration has turned its back on in order to face East Asia: Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus the most consequential thing that the administration got wrong this year was its poor handling of the draw-down in both countries. This failure has as its root an incorrect definition of success. The administration has portrayed victory as bringing home U.S. troops when its real measure is to be found in what U.S. forces leave behind. In failing to appreciate that basic fact, the administration runs the real risk of trading failure for success and chaos for progress. 

The real tragedy is that it need not have been thus. An extension of the Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq could have made a real difference, and a more gradual draw-down in Afghanistan still could. One can only hope that the administration will change course while it still can.

One of the things that I enjoy most about Shadow Government is the diversity of views that its members hold. I was particularly heartened that my friend and former colleague Kori Schake responded to my call for a debate over defense spending by firing a volley in defense of the new orthodoxy on defense spending. Specifically, she attempts to make the case that the federal debt is a national security threat that demands further defense cuts, that the United States has a large margin of superiority over potential adversaries, and we need to seek greater efficiency in defense.

I agree with Kori that our national debt is an important national security concern, but I also agree with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey that it is not our most important one. In my view, it would be strategically unsound, even if it were economically possible, to balance the budget on the back of defense.

I agree that defense should not be "out of bounds" in budget matters. But the fact is that in a period that has witnessed a massive expansion of government spending, the Defense Department has already sustained several rounds of cuts, dating back to the first months of the Obama administration. As both Robert Gates and Leon Panetta have argued, additional cuts cannot help but affect U.S. security.

Kori and I disagree as to the magnitude of America's military advantage. Some parts of the world (Europe, for example) are clearly safer and more secure than in decades past. But other parts of the world, such as Asia, are less secure. Of particular concern is China's ongoing military modernization, a portion of which is aimed at coercing U.S. allies and denying the United States access to the Western Pacific. As I have argued elsewhere, the United States has consistently underestimated the scope and pace of China's fielding of new weapons, including those designed to counter U.S. power projection forces. Moreover, over the past decade the weapons most needed to respond to such developments have received short shrift in the Pentagon budget. As a result, the United States faces an increasingly unfavorable military balance in the Western Pacific.

Kori argues that the U.S. armed forces have undergone a "rolling modernization." In fact, however, the post-9/11 military buildup has produced few new weapon systems, and those that have been fielded over the past decade have been geared toward a particular kind of war against a particular kind of foe. For example, the United States fielded thousands of Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles for Iraq and a sent a second generation to Afghanistan. Such vehicles are unlikely to be of much use in future wars, however. And the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that have been crucial to U.S. success in combating insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan and targeting terrorists in Pakistan are unlikely to survive in a conflict with an adversary that possesses even a rudimentary air defense network.

Whole parts of the U.S. armed forces have been left out of whatever "rolling modernization" has taken place. U.S. Air Force aircraft are on average more than 23 years old, the oldest in Air Force history, and are getting older. Many transport aircraft and aerial refueling tankers are more than 40 years old, and some may be as old as 70-80 years before they retire. The U.S. Navy is smaller now than it was before the United States entered World War I, and is getting smaller. No "rolling modernization" will reverse these trends; only full-scale recapitalization of the U.S. armed forces will.

As a veteran of the war in Iraq and as someone who has dedicated a good portion of my professional career to educating officers, I am immensely proud of the men and women of the U.S. armed forces. Kori and I agree that they are "amazingly proficient and adaptive." But the U.S. armed forces have devoted the past decade to perfecting a particular type of warfare - counterinsurgency. Tomorrow's wars are likely to look much different than today's, and in focusing on winning today's wars we have all too often neglected preparing for tomorrow's.

Finally, Kori and I agree that efficiency is desirable. I applauded Secretary of Gates' efforts to seek efficiencies in the defense budget, and certainly feel that more can be done. However, the ultima ratio of defense is effectiveness, not efficiency. That is, defense spending ultimately exists to provide security to the American people. Inefficient yet effective defense remains preferable to efficient yet ineffective defense.

In recent months, a new orthodoxy has crept into discussions of defense spending. This narrative holds that the United States spends too much on defense, is suffering economically because of it, and therefore the United States can and should make major cuts in the size of the defense budget. The orthodox view increasingly substitutes arbitrary budget targets for an appreciation of America's enduring interests. The alternative, heretical, view starts with an understanding of America's unique global role and then seeks to identify the strategy and resources needed to fulfill it. Mitt Romney began to challenge this orthodoxy in his speech on foreign policy last Friday at The Citadel. One hopes that this is but the first round of a much-needed debate on defense spending.

The Orthodox View: The current level of defense spending is unsustainable. The U.S. government will need to make major cuts in defense spending in upcoming years.

The Heresy: The Defense Department has already undertaken several rounds of cuts since the Obama administration took office, and the Obama administration plans to cut an additional $400 billion in defense expenditures. If the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction does not reach its targeted level of cuts, the Defense Department will face unprecedented automatic cuts. As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates cautioned shortly before leaving office, additional cuts in defense will call into question the role that the United States has played in the world for more than half a century. As he put it, "The tough choices ahead are really about the kind of role the American people -- accustomed to unquestioned military dominance for the past two decades -- want their country to play in the world."

The United States may actually have to spend more on defense to defend U.S. territory, protect our allies, and safeguard our interests. In the words of the Congressionally-mandated 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel, "The [U.S.] force structure needs to be increased in a number of areas, including the need to counter anti-access challenges; strengthen homeland defense, including cyber threats; and conduct post-conflict stabilization missions. It must also be modernized." These are not the words of some paleo- or neo-conservative, but rather the findings of a group of 20 senior officials who have served Democratic and Republican presidents over decades. The Independent Panel called for an increase in the size of the U.S. Navy, the acquisition of a next-generation bomber, and new long-range strike systems. The panel acknowledged that although the Defense Department must do everything it can to achieve cost savings on acquisition and overhead, "substantial additional resources will be required to modernize the force."

The Orthodox View: Defense spending is a drain on the U.S. economy.

The Heresy: Defense spending provides tangible benefits to the American people both internationally and domestically.

Internationally, American military dominance has benefited the United States and the world as a whole. The fact that the U.S. Navy has commanded the maritime commons has allowed trade to flow freely and reliably, spurring globalization and lifting millions out of poverty. It is unclear whether the stability that American military dominance has yielded would continue in its absence. As Bill Clinton's Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., famously noted, security is like oxygen: you don't notice it until it begins to run out.

Domestically, defense does more to stimulate the U.S. economy than most things the U.S. government spends money on. The defense budget creates job and spurs the development of new technology. It is hard to think of other categories of government expenditure that are as stimulative of economic growth, yet the Defense Department was largely exempt from the Obama administration's stimulus plans.

The stakes are too high to accept the new orthodoxy on defense on face value. The American people deserve a full-scale debate over the direction of American national security. As last year's Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel put it, "Although there is a cost to recapitalizing the military, there is also a price to be paid for not re-capitalizing, one that in the long run would be much greater."

Today marks Robert Gates' last day as secretary of defense. On a day that will feature its share of testimonials from others, let me offer my own. My view is no doubt colored by the fact that I served him for more than two years, but, then again, the experience of witnessing his leadership and decision-making up close and often behind closed doors clarified more than it distorted.

Gates came to the Pentagon with a mandate to focus on Iraq. Many at the time, aware of his involvement in the Iraq Study Group, feared that he had been hired to liquidate the United States' investment in Iraq. We soon realized that Gates did indeed want to end the war in Iraq, but in victory rather than defeat. Turning the war around is likely to be seen as the signal achievement of his tenure as secretary of defense. If victory in Iraq is to be squandered, it will be left to his successors to do so.

Gates also deserves great credit for enforcing high standards of accountability within the Defense Department, rewarding those whose performance warranted it, and removing those whose actions demanded it. He also strengthened civilian leadership of the department, often in ways that were subtle and out of the limelight. In 2008, for example, he signed the National Defense Strategy over the objections of the civilian and military leaders of the services. Gates believed the Defense Department needed to make tradeoffs and accept additional risk; the service chiefs and secretaries were unwilling to do so. Similarly, Gates took an important step to build up much-needed expertise for national security by inaugurating the Minerva Initiative, which provides grants to universities to build much-needed intellectual capital in the social sciences to help national defense. It is an initiative that deserves to be supported and expanded.

In other areas, his legacy is at best uncertain. How he will be judged on Afghanistan is very much bound up with the outcome of the war. However, to the extent that the Obama administration has made poor choices in Afghanistan, history will likely judge that things would have been worse without Gates' advocacy and advice. The same is true on the areas of missile defense and nuclear arms control: Things likely would have been worse without Gates' moderating influence.

Gates leaves other tasks incomplete. For years, but particularly over the last year and a half, he has spoken at length about the need to reform the Defense Department's institutions and structure, but much action needs to accompany those words. Leon Panetta would be well advised to follow through with the transformation agenda.

It is hazardous to predict the verdict of history. In time, the cheers of adulation fade, and the jeers give way to empathy, understanding, and sometimes respect. It is a safe bet, however, that Robert Gates will be judged among the nation's best secretaries of defense. The nation owes him a debt of gratitude, for it is better off for his service.

The past two months have witnessed a series of revelations regarding China's growing military power. In December 2010, Admiral Robert Willard, Commander of U.S. Pacific Command, declared that the aircraft carrier-killing DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile had achieved initial operating capability. Last month, photographs and video of the J-20 fifth-generation stealth aircraft, a plane considerably more advanced than observers expected of China, appeared on the internet.

On Monday, Ross Babbage, the founder of Australia's respected think tank, the Kokoda Foundation, issued a monograph, Australia's Strategic Edge in 2030 that examined the changing military balance in the Western Pacific and its implications for Australia. It is a report that demands the attention of policy makers in Washington.

Babbage argued that China's aggressive military modernization is rapidly undermining the pillars that have supported American presence in the Western Pacific for more than half a century. As he puts it, "China is for the first time close to achieving a military capability to deny United States and allied forces access to much of the Western Pacific rim." He catalogues China's anti-access efforts, which include cruise and ballistic missiles that can attack ships and fixed targets; a massive investment in cyber-warfare capabilities, with reports of tens of thousands of Chinese cyber intrusions daily; new classes of both nuclear and conventionally powered submarines; a substantial increase in the Chinese nuclear stockpile; a huge investment in space warfare; and a massive increase in fighter bomber and other airborne strike capabilities.

Babbage argued that Australia will need to take drastic action in order to protect its interests in a region increasingly dominated by China. These include acquiring a fleet of 12 nuclear-powered attack submarines (the report hinted at leasing or purchasing Virginia-class SSNs from the United States), developing conventionally armed ballistic and cruise missiles, increasing Australia's investment in cyber warfare, and hosting American forces on Australian soil.

Read on

On Jan. 17, 1991, a broad based coalition, led by the United States, launched Operation DESERT STORM to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. We know much more of the story now, twenty years later, than we did then, even if we do not yet know how it will turn out. In particular, we know much more about the Iraqi side of the conflict, thanks to the millions of pages of Iraqi government documents captured during the 2003 Iraq war. We also have twenty years of subsequent experience to influence our judgment.

In retrospect, the U.S. conduct of the 1991 Gulf War was a success, though one marred by a fundamental failure to compel our adversary -- the most basic object of strategy.

On the positive side, the war was a clear demonstration of the battlefield prowess of the U.S. armed forces. It is hard for many today to remember, but the run-up to the Gulf War saw many predictions that Iraq would inflict massive casualties on the United States, and even that Iraq would defeat the U.S. military. Many analysts predicted that a war would be protracted and costly to the United States. Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski forecast 20,000 casualties, while Patrick Buchanan predicted 30,000. Senator Ted Kennedy estimated that there would be some 3,000 U.S. casualties per week, while former Secretary of the Navy (and current Senator) James Webb warned that the U.S. Army would be "bled dry" in three weeks. On the eve of the Gulf War, a group of analysts operating under the auspices of the U.S. Army War College wrote "We should ask ourselves whether we are prepared for [war with Iraq] -- in our view we are not."

Instead, the lopsided battles in the deserts of Kuwait and southern Iraq and the seemingly effortless domination of the Iraqi air force indicated to many that warfare had indeed changed. The contrast between prewar expectations of a bloody fight and the wartime reality of Iraqi collapse struck many observers as an indicator of fundamental change. In particular, the war witnessed the emergence of stealth and precision-guided munitions (PGMs) as important instruments of war, even though the more than 17,000 PGMs expended during the war comprised only eight percent of the bombs dropped. What was novel was the intensity of the campaign: In six weeks, the coalition dropped more than double the number of laser-guided bombs released over North Vietnam in nine months.

Read on

Yesterday Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced cuts in the U.S. defense program amounting to $78 billion over the next five years. Whereas both he and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, had advised the White House that 2-3 percent growth in defense spending was required, the Obama administration will apparently give the Defense Department less than a 1 percent increase over what it requested for 2011.

Gates's decisions amounted to a mixed bag. On the positive side, Gates cancelled the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle and the Army's next-generation short-range surface-to-air missile system and put the Marines' variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on "two-year probation" due to cost overruns and delays. All are sensible moves. Gates also announced an increase in health care premiums for working-age military retirees. This is a good first step, but only a first step, in reining in ballooning defense personnel costs.

Although Gates decided to terminate several programs of marginal utility, he didn't go far enough in using the resulting savings to beef up the capabilities the United States requires to protect American interests in coming years. As the bipartisan Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel argued last year, the United States may actually need to increase defense expenditures in order to counter anti-access challenges, such as those posed by China, and acquire new equipment to replace systems that were last modernized during the Reagan administration thirty years ago. Although Gates yesterday finally announced support for the Air Force's next-generation bomber and allocated additional funding to the Navy's unmanned combat strike system, much more needs to be done to maintain stability in the Western Pacific in the face of China's military modernization. The Defense Department should, for example:

• Commit itself to acquiring the next-generation bomber in 2018. Specifically, the Air Force should begin purchasing the bomber in blocks of 10, allowing for early fielding as well as an evolutionary approach that will allow it to be upgraded as new capabilities prove themselves.
• Scrap the current program to develop a land-based conventional Prompt Global Strike system in favor of a new, cheaper, and more technologically feasible conventionally armed submarine-launched ballistic missile.
• Acquire additional Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines to bolster U.S. undersea warfare and long-range conventional strike capability

Efficiency in defense is a laudatory goal. However, it should always take second place to the imperative of protecting U.S. interests in an increasingly challenging security environment.

I enjoy Tom Ricks' blog and read it regularly -- even when he farms it out to one of his CNAS colleagues. That having been said, I'm puzzled by Connor O'Brien's post on his field trip to hear presumptive Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Buck McKeon (R, CA) speak at the Foreign Policy Initiative's conference earlier this week. In particular, I find curious his contention that the HASC has been irrelevant under its current chairman, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) as well as its prediction that McKeon will lead it "deeper into irrelevancy".

Under Ike Skelton, one of the Democratic Party's most respected voices on defense issues, HASC was a model of bipartisanship, a tradition that McKeon has pledged to continue. HASC also undertook a number of important initiatives, including the strengthening of professional military education, and took seriously its role in oversight and investigation. HASC was also a strong supporter of this year's bipartisan Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel that called for, among other things, increased spending on defense. McKeon, for his part, has been a vocal advocate of the need to bolster U.S. capabilities to respond to Chinese military modernization and counter Beijing's efforts to field capabilities to deny the United States access to the Western Pacific. 

It is unfortunate that Ike Skelton got caught up in the Republican tidal wave that hit Capital Hill earlier this month. He has long been one of the Democratic Party's true defense experts, and he will be missed. But Buck McKeon promises to continue the tradition of strong bipartisan support for national defense, support that is crucial if we are to win in Afghanistan and prepare for the challenges of the future.