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The future of the US military
2004.09.16 — Government | War | by BB Rodriguez
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Americans in Iraq. [US government photo] |
It is the stated policy of neoconservative doctrine for the US military to be able to fight two major wars simultaneously in different theaters. It should be noted that this has never been done successfully by any nation in history except one: the United States during WW2, and it took everything we had.
The dirty little secret of neocons is that they wanted a military that can fight two wars for the simple reason that they wanted to fight two wars.
Of course, they have to be the kind of wars they want to fight (and have been planning for years), and they have to be fought by Republican presidents. Republican presidents who attack Iraq to liberate its people from oppression gain praise (even if the initial justifications were completely different, completely wrong, and not supported by the rest of the world). Democratic presidents who attack Serbia to liberate its people from genocide suffer their wrath (complete with gratuitous he-didn't-serve-in-Nam reference).
Remember the "peace dividend"? You're spending it. |
It's absurd to suggest that we maintain a gigantic standing army, armed to the teeth to battle Arabs and Koreans at the same time. It would hobble our economy unnecessarily, requiring us to spend untold billions annually on weapons we never intend to use. Remember the "peace dividend"? You're spending it.
"Hey, we're not at peace!" you say? Weird isn't it? Bush 2 lowered taxes and then invaded two countries. Then he lowered taxes again. That's neocon thinking for you. War: good. Taxes: bad.
It is likely that the neocons (those few diehards remaining) hope that the trouble in Iraq will convince Americans to fund a massive military again, a bloated, teetering, inefficient, money-drunk machine that will ride America piggyback thru the twenty-first century.
What America needs is a sleek, rapid-response military, trained extensively with non-lethal peacekeeping weapons and techniques. It needs to be able to fight two minor conflicts simultaneously (or one major one).
We need a military |
After all, we outweigh our enemies like sumos outweigh featherweights. When we act preemptively, we should do so only under the aegis of the United Nations, with our allies firmly backing us—not protesting in the streets.
We need a military as skilled in peacekeeping as they are in blitzkrieg—I mean "shock and awe." Large parts of them should be specifically trained in crowd control, policing, and public relations.
And we need a foreign intelligence service that can actually find and kill people like Osama bin Laden.
f e e d b a c k
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