[Debate] Less Counter-Insurgency, More Asia in New U.S. Strategy

[Riaz K Tayob]

Less Counter-Insurgency, More Asia in New U.S. Strategy
By Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Jan 5, 2012 (IPS) - Capping a major eight-month review, 
President Barack Obama unveiled a new defence strategy here Thursday 
that places more emphasis on U.S. military capabilities in Asia and the 
Pacific and much less on counter-insurgency and nation-building 
operations in poorer and conflict-plagued countries.

Among other steps, the new strategy paper, "Sustaining U.S. Global 
Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense", calls for new 
investments in cyber-security and greater reliance on naval and air 
power, as opposed to ground forces whose ranks will be reduced by tens 
of thousands over the coming few years.

"As we look beyond the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – and the end of 
long-term nation-building with large military footprints – we'll be able 
to ensure our security with smaller conventional ground forces," Obama 
said at an unprecedented presidential briefing at the Pentagon.

"…So, yes, our military will be leaner, but the world must know the 
United States is going to maintain our military superiority with armed 
forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of 
contingencies and threats," he added.

The new strategy, which Obama ordered the Pentagon to prepare last 
April, is designed to accommodate some 450 billion dollars in cuts in 
projected defence budgets over the next 10 years.

Because of the failure last November of a bipartisan Congressional 
"super-committee" to reach agreement on how to reduce the record 
trillion-dollar deficits that Washington faces, the Pentagon may be 
forced to cut as much as an additional 600 billion dollars over the decade.

At more than 700 billion dollars in 2012, the U.S. defence budget 
accounts for over 40 percent of total annual global military spending 
and exceeds the combined defence budgets of the world's 20 next most- 
powerful militaries.

Even with the 10-year, 450-billion-dollar cut on which the new strategy 
is based, however, Obama said the Pentagon's budget will continue "to be 
larger than roughly the next 10 countries combined" and "will still 
grow, because we have global responsibilities that demand our leadership".

Much of the savings will be borne by the reductions in ground forces, of 
which the Army is likely to be the biggest loser. While specific details 
of cuts are expected to be announced later this month or in early 
February, the Army's ranks are likely to decline from the current 
570,000 soldiers to 490,000 in the coming few years, according to senior 
Pentagon officials.

The Marines, currently over 200,000 strong, will be much hit less hard 
as they are likely to be assigned to naval task forces whose importance 
will increase as a result of the administration's strategic "pivot" from 
the Greater Middle East towards the Asia- Pacific region that was 
dramatised by Obama's November swing through the region.

Indeed, it was during that tour that he announced the deployment 2,500 
Marines to a base in northern Australia in what the New York Times 
called "the first long-term expansion of the American's military's 
presence in the Pacific" since the Vietnam War.

That geographical pivot was re-affirmed in the new strategy document, 
which described U.S. economic and security interests as "inextricably 
linked" to the region. "Accordingly, while the U.S. military will 
continue to contribute to security globally, we will of necessity 
rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region," it declared.

Other savings are likely to come from delays or cancellations of costly 
new weapons systems, most notably the nearly 2,500 F-35 Joint Strike 
Fighters (JSF) ordered by the Pentagon. The Lockheed-Martin programme 
has been plagued by huge cost overruns, making it the most expensive 
defence programme in U.S. history.

The strategy also suggests cuts in U.S. nuclear forces. "It is possible 
that our deterrence goals can be achieved with a smaller nuclear force, 
which would reduce the number of nuclear weapons in our inventory as 
well as their role in U.S. national security strategy," the strategy 
paper asserted.

The strategy also suggested that Washington is abandoning its post- Cold 
War stance that it should be able to fight two major ground wars in 
different parts of the globe at the same time.

"Even when U.S. forces are committed to a large-scale operation in one 
region, they will be capable of denying the objectives of – or imposing 
unacceptable costs on – an opportunistic aggressor in a second region," 
the document states.

That was criticised by the Republican chairman of the House Armed 
Services Committee, Rep. Bud McKeon, who called it "unrealistic".

"The president is clearly repeating the mistakes of the past – by 
providing a force far smaller than is sufficient to meet the threats we 
face," he told editors at the neo-conservative American Enterprise 
Institute (AEI). "The possibility of two simultaneous contingency 
operations is real. One need only look at the current instability in 
North Korea and the threats coming from Iran, for an example."

McKeon also complained that the reduction in ground troops will put the 
U.S. "back on a pre-9/11 footing" and that "the next time we have to 
engage in a major ground operation, we won't have the forces we need, 
just as we didn't in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Similarly, Jamie Fly, the executive director of the hawkish Foreign 
Policy Initiative (FPI), described the strategy's rejection of COIN and 
nation-building as "very dangerous".

"I understand that most Americans are tired of prolonged commitments in 
war zones, but the fact of the matter is we never know what's over the 
horizon," he told IPS. "Stating up front that our forces are going to be 
incapable of conducting these types of operations is very risky."

If the hawks were unhappy, however, more-dovish voices were decidedly 
muted in their enthusiasm.

"The Pentagon's proposed reductions in its spending plans are far too 
low," according to William Hartung, a veteran defence analyst at the 
Washington-based Center for International Policy.

"If the administration were to follow up on its own rhetoric on smaller 
conventional forces, getting rid of outdated Cold War-era systems, and 
reduce our nuclear forces, it could double its proposed cuts in Pentagon 
spending to one trillion dollars over the next decade. That would be a 
real down payment on reductions that need to be made to have a 
significant impact on reducing future deficits," he said.

"This is an extremely modest build-down," said Miriam Pemberton of the 
Institute for Policy Studies, who noted that the anticipated 2013 
Pentagon budget that Obama will request in his State of the Union 
Address to Congress later this month will amount to only four percent 
less than the previous five-year average.

Even as the strategy review re-affirmed Obama's "pivot" to the 
Asia/Pacific, it also stressed its continued commitment to the Greater 
Middle East, noting U.S. goals of "countering violent extremists and 
destabilizing threats, particularly "prevent(ing) Iran's development of 
a nuclear weapon capability and counter(ing) its destabilizing policies."

"To support these objectives, the United States will continue to place a 
premium on U.S. and allied military presence in – and support of – 
partner nations in and around this region," it asserted in italics.

"Those allies in the Persian Gulf should rest easier after today's press 
conference," noted Andrew Exum, senior fellow of the Center for a New 
American Security (CNAS).

In remarks late last month, after Washington completed the withdrawal of 
all its combat troops from Iraq, Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national 
security adviser, sparked considerable speculation over the continued 
U.S. military presence in the region when he told reporters that the 
U.S. would seek to "demilitarise" its presence there by returning to a 
"posture …far more in line with where we were before 1990."

*Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at 
http://www.lobelog.com.

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