A few days ago Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that he is would like to see the Defense Department cut $100 billion from the defense budget over the next five years. As someone who has studied the defense budget in depth over the past few years at both the Kennedy school and the Fletcher School I have written the following memo outlining ways in which the DoD can cut $150 billion from the defense budget by 2016.

Returning the defense budget to pre 9/11 levels will force us to prioritize future threats and explicitly define the strategic purpose of each branch of the armed forces. Budgetary constraints will finally shift us away from our current Cold War mix of combat capabilities towards a new 1-3-2-1 force planning construct. Under the new formula, the U.S. military will be responsible for defending the United States (1); maintaining forces capable of deterring aggression in NE Asia, the East Asian littoral, and Middle East (3); actively partner with allies to perform stability operations in two of these regions (2); and maintain a capability to win decisively in one war against a conventional or WMD armed adversary (1).

Analysis of the future threat environment has concluded that unconventional wars are the most likely conflicts facing the U.S for the foreseeable future. In order to properly mitigate this threat, the armed forces must elevate irregular warfare, counterinsurgency and stability operations to the status of “core missions.” While critics will argue that prioritizing unconventional threats will leave us vulnerable to attack by conventional actors, the lack of a near-peer competitor makes this a low-risk opportunity to remodel our force structure to battle more current and likely threats. Institutionalizing counterinsurgency and stability operations will allow the U.S. military to respond to a broader range of threats at a greatly reduced cost. The following suggestions are ways to reduce the defense budget to approximately $400 billion by FY 2016. Suggested cuts translate to $104.7 billion in annual savings and an additional $159.7 billion in long-term savings resulting from a reduction in F-35 procurement over the next ten years.

Reduce End Strength to Near FY 2000 Levels ($63.3B in annual savings)
By reducing the overall end strength of the land forces to FY 2000 levels, we can decrease annual defense spending by an estimated $61.3 billion. The majority of savings can be found by first rolling the Army back to ten divisions each consisting of three combat brigades, a total reduction of 67,620 soldiers. From the remaining force, we should eliminate one armored division and one light infantry division to form two stability and reconstruction divisions each consisting of 10,000 troops. These divisions will allow special operations forces to focus on direct action by taking over training of indigenous security forces and most other COIN/Stability operations. CBO estimates that this restructuring would save the Army $32 billion over the next 16 years ($2 billion annually) due to the smaller number of units that would require modernization and the reduced need for next generation weaponry. One area of growth for the Army should be the 20th CBRNE Support Command, which should be doubled in size to 12,000 soldiers in order to be able to assign an EOD team to every BCT and a CBRN unit to each division. If we are no longer engaged in large scale combat operations, the Marine Corps will also be forced to reduce its numbers from 202,000 back to 172,000. While the Army and Marine Corps will likely object to large scale reductions in their end strengths, our new force planning construct no longer calls for us to fight two simultaneous conventional campaigns and thus maintaining the current number of combat forces is no long necessary

Reduce the Number of Foreign Military Bases by 25% (Cost of $30B, yields $25.5B in annual savings)
Of the 737 U.S. military bases currently operating worldwide (not counting in Iraq and Afghanistan) 427 (58%) are located in Europe. While the majority of our future planning and acquisition programs are oriented around fighting and deterring threats emanating from the Middle East and Asia, the U.S. military’s antiquated basing structure is still largely focused around deterring a Soviet threat that no longer exists. I propose reducing our global footprint by ¼ through the closing of 145 of these bases: 112 in Germany, 6 in Belgium, 2 in Greece and 31 in Italy. While the cost of many of these bases is shared with allies, we can no longer justify a large presence to guard against a non-existent threat. This new round of BRAC will cost approximately $30 billion if begun in 2011, but should yield annual savings of $25.5 billion after 2016.

Reduce Procurement of the F-35 by 50% ($15.9B in annual Savings, $159.7B long-term)
Our lack of a peer competitor and our near term focus on unconventional warfare means that our emphasis on replacing our current generation air systems with next generation systems is unwarranted. Rather than purchasing thousands of new F-35’s, we should reduce procurement of this platform and instead replace air systems that have reached the end of their life cycles with the latest version of the same system. These newer systems are far more capable than the ones they replace and cost approximately half as much as next generation technology. A fifty percent reduction in the procurement of F-35’s will cut $159.7 billion from the total long-term procurement budget and translate to $15.9 billion in annual savings. While the Air Force and Navy will argue that such cuts will reduce the number of missions they are capable of flying, a portion of the F-35’s mission can be allocated to our new long-range bombers and UAVs.

Restructure the Navy to be a More Mobile and Cost Effective Force ($5.3B in savings over 5yrs)
Since the end of the Cold War, the Navy has failed to redefine its strategic purpose. Over the next decade, we must move the Navy away from its focus on maritime warfare towards its primary missions of supporting ground-based operations and protecting the sea lines of communication (SLOC). According to their long-term shipbuilding plan, the Navy plans to acquire 53 Littoral Combat Ships (LCS’s) to perform antiship, anti-submarine and countermine warfare at a cost of $33.1 billion. I believe that combining the Navy and Coast Guard’s Small Combatant Programs will provide the Navy with a capability that is superior for executing the peacetime elements of its maritime strategy, but also offers the speed and offensive capabilities necessary to guard against threats to the SLOC. Reducing the number of LCS’s purchased will allow the Navy to acquire the naval version of the Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter (NSC). The CBO estimates that swapping out 25 LCS’s for 20 NSC’s will save the Navy an estimated $5.3 billion.

On Thursday, Rear Admiral Nora Tyson took command of Carrier Strike Group Two aboard the USS George H. W. Bush. Tyson made history, becoming the first woman to command an aircraft carrier in the US Navy. When Tyson received her first commission in 1979, women for the first time became a Surface Warfare Officer and a carrier-certified Naval aviator. Women were not given permanent assignments on board combat ships until 1994.

Congratulations to Rear Adm. Tyson!

One of the major revelations to come out of the 92,000 previously classified documents recently released by wikileaks is that apparently the Taliban have on several occasions fired at U.S aircraft using surface to air missiles better known as MANPADS (Man Portable Air Defense Systems). The media has seized upon this story as yet another government blunder since after all wasn't it the U.S. government who originally supplied the Mujahideen with stinger missiles back in the 80's when they were fighting the Soviets? However, a closer examination of the specs on these stingers leads one to a far different and perhaps more dangerous conclusion; that Pakistan has begun to supply the Taliban with their own surface to air missiles to use against U.S. forces.

I had often heard that there were several hundred stingers unaccounted for after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan and when I was there this summer I asked the crews of helicopters I was flying on why it was that we no longer considered these weapons a threat. According to weapons experts, the batteries on stinger missiles are good for one shot each and they must be changed out if the delivery system is to be used more than once. Furthermore, the average shelf life of unused batteries is only 4-5 years. Meaning that any stinger missiles given to the Mujahideen in the 80's would no longer be effective today. While it is not beyond the realm of contemplation that a skilled technician could jerry rig some sort of alternative battery for these devices, such skill is likely out of the range of the vast majority of Taliban. These weapons are however still capable of exploding, only the delivery device is deactivated. As such a great deal of the remaining stingers left over from the 80's have probably since been turned into IEDs.

The fact remains however that the Taliban are getting fully functioning MANPADS from somewhere, which in all likelihood have been constructed in the last 4-5 years. The most likely candidate is Pakistan which is both the traditional patron of the Taliban and has for the last twenty years been a manufacturer of their very own surface to air missile known as the Anza. The Anza has an effective range of up to 5000 meters and could certainly have been behind the downing of several US helicopters in recent years. In recent years, Pakistan has advertised the Anza series for export,displaying it at the International Defense Exhibition (IDEX) 2007 event in the UAE.

Worst case scenario: The Pakistani ISI is directly providing the Taliban with surface to air missiles

Best Case: Pakistan is irresponsibly selling MANPADS on the open market and they are ending up in the hands of the Taliban through a middleman

The always-superb Rajiv Chandrasekaran has a story in the Washington Post about progress in Afghanistan, comparing the lack of it in Marja (a "bleeding ulcer," as General McChrystal famously said) with the relative tranquility and prosperity of Nawa. Both hamlets are similar demographically and geographically, but while Marja continues to hemorrhage Nawa is creeping forward.

Both were stricken by the Taliban insurgency four years ago. And over the past year, both have been treated with America's new counterinsurgency formula: Each community has been flooded with U.S. Marines and Afghan security forces, at troop levels that meet or exceed what counterinsurgency theorists prescribe. Each has received a surge of cash and civilian experts in an effort to provide public services, rebuild infrastructure and dole out basic economic assistance. Each has been described as a priority by the central government in Kabul. So why did all this work in one but not the other?

Photo by Lance Cpl. Tommy Bellegarde

Chandrasekaran is unable to reach a firm conclusion, and most of the insiders he interviewed seemed similarly befuddled.  But they all seem focused on learning the lessons from each case, and applying them elsewhere.  The overriding question Chandrasekaran asks concerns the future utilization of the COIN model - which town is the outlier, and which is the repeatable success?

Unfortunately, this is the wrong question.  It rests on the assumption that the U.S. did something right in Nawa but something wrong in Marja, and the only thing to do is discover that error.  At a deeper level, the assumption is that all events are conclusively influenced by U.S. policy - we can do it right or do it wrong, but ultimately we are the ones determining the outcome.  I find this idea troubling.  Accepting that the U.S. military is the decisive factor in the near-term future in Afghanistan means neglecting local relations and politics, national governance (or the lack thereof), and a host of other factors, not the least of which is the most fundamental of all military strategy - the enemy gets a vote.

Chandrasekaran almost hits on this point, but quickly loses the thread:

But the residents also emphasized that the Taliban fighters left of their own accord. "They chose to flee from here," said one shopkeeper. "They drove away as soon as the Marines arrived."

In other words, perhaps the success in Nawa was not the result of superior American tactics, but rather of a Taliban miscalculation.  Their failure in Nawa may have been part of the reason the Taliban refused to flee Marja; an attempt to avoid repeating the mistake.

So what does this mean for U.S. operations in Afghanistan?  It's a reminder that actors and events that are not part of the plan influence the outcome, sometimes decisively.  As the Bush Administration learned in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad, unplanned events occur and must be dealt with, even if that means discarding the original blueprint.  COIN doctrine cannot be implemented according to any book, and the notion that there is a "right" way to do COIN which guarantees success is a fallacy.  Perhaps General Petraeus has taken a similar lesson from recent events.  He has reportedly decided to scrap the invasion Kandahar, calling the current plan "not an appropriate model."  Kudos to P4 for making the right call, and hopefully this is only the first of many.

The July 11 attacks by the Somali Islamist group Al-Shabaab killed more than 70 people watching the finals of the World Cup in Kampala, Uganda's lakeside capital city. The tragic bombings, and the response, have brought up an interesting issue in the field of international security - why countries react in different ways to terrorist attacks.

On one end of the spectrum is Spain's reaction to the March 11, 2004 attacks by "homegrown" Al-Qaeda members on the Madrid subway (Ed. note - why do so many terrorist attacks happen on the 11th day of the month?). The attacks occurred shortly before the 2004 parliamentary elections, and led to Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's party, known by its Spanish acronym PSOE, taking power from the Conservative Jose Maria Aznar. In the aftermath of the election, tinged by Aznar's contention that the bombings were caused by the Basque separatist group ETA, Zapatero's government withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq.

On the other end of the spectrum is the U.S. reaction to the September 11 attacks in 2001, with a death toll of over 3,000. Within a month, after the Taliban refused to turn over Osama Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda members, U.S. and allied forces had entered the country. On October 7, 2001, airstrikes began in Kabul. U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan today, 105 months after the initial invasion. 9/11, far from deterring future action, led directly to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

In reacting to the 7/11 attacks, Uganda's government has remained uncowed, despite being singled out for attack by Al-Shabaab because of the presence of Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia. President Yoweri Museveni was defiant, stating that "we shall go for them wherever they are coming from. We will look for them and get them as we always do." Although this rhetoric is not likely to be backed by immediate military action, Museveni's words are no retreat. In fact, he has already hinted at changing the mandate of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia to one of "peace enforcement." Such a shift in the rules of engagement would allow for a more proactive military effort against Al-Shabaab.

Leaving aside the (important) question of why Al-Shabaab would attack Uganda or what their broader agenda may be, why did Uganda react in this way, and why do countries react so differently when responding to terrorism?

While we've been distracted by the ever-changing world around us and lost interest in Iran after sanctions were passed by Congress, life has rolled on in Tehran.  But it has not rolled smoothly.  Yesterday marked a crucial turning point in domestic relations, as merchants in the capital ended a 12-day strike. 

Now why is this important?  No, it's not the result of U.S. sanctions and is certainly no reason to declare a victory.  And no, these strikes really are not similar to the mass protests and strikes of 1979 that brought down the Shah - the government is in no immediate danger of collapsing.  But this strike is crucially important as an indicator that economic conditions in Iran continue to deteriorate and that the general populace has thus far been unswayed by the "Blame America" rhetoric from the regime.

Under the mismanagement of President Ahmadinejad, the Iranian economy has cratered.  He spun profits from record-high oil prices into vast subsidy programs to bulwark domestic support, but when oil prices dropped those programs became massive government expenditures with no revenue backing.  Not only did he miss an opportunity to expand and diversify Iran's economy, Ahmadinejad's fiscal cluelessness has now burdened the state with more debt than it can handle.  The solution: higher taxes, which led directly to the recent strike.

Again, the regime is not in imminent danger.  But these strikes illustrate the cost of financial imprudence, and without an economic turnaround even blatant vote-stealing won't keep the current government afloat.

The 2010 mid-term election is developing into a referendum on the economy, with foreign policy playing little to no role. A recent Gallup poll asks Americans what they think is "the most important problem facing this country today" and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan tie with 3%. No foreign policy issue garners more than 7% (immigration) and the aggregate of the all the foreign policy-related issues is 17%. Americans are most daunted by the economy; 53% mention either the economy or unemployment/jobs as the most important problem.

This is occurring in an atmosphere where the public sees the President as competent in foreign affairs, but increasingly inept at handling the national economy. In a recent TIME poll, Obama retains a 52% approval rate on foreign policy (41% disapprove) and a 47/44 approval/disapproval rate on Afghanistan, but has only a 44% approval rate on the economy (53% disapprove). The President has been seen as more competent on foreign policy than on the economy since March 2009.

Finally, a majority of Americans both approve of the President's timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan and approve of his decision to both remove General McChrystal and appoint General Petraeus, the latter by incredible margins.

There are two important implications of this polling data. First, foreign policy will be a non-issue for most of the 2010 campaign. With voters' attention disproportionately fixed on the economy, campaigns will be about jobs, jobs, and jobs. Of course the occasional congressional race will hinge on a foreign policy issue. Districts with large military bases or ethnic populations with specific foreign policy interests feature intense foreign policy debates, but they are not the norm across the country. However, even when foreign policy and national security are emphasized, it will likely occur in the context of, you guessed it, jobs.

Second, congressional support for President Obama's foreign policy won't flag, even with a Republican takeover of (one or both houses of) Congress. On the major foreign policy issues facing the United States, namely Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama is supported heavily by the Republican minority. In fact, in the recent debate over supplemental funding for the war in Afghanistan, the main opposition was from liberal Democrats.

Democrats running for Congress this fall will be in a race against the economy, hoping it improves enough by October to argue that things are getting better. If the unemployment rate starts creeping down over the end of the summer, and September and October see big job gains, then Democrats can feel (somewhat) secure in the fact that they will only lose a few seats. If however, unemployment stays around 9.5%, or increases, watch for Democrats to suffer major losses in November.

Of course, all of this analysis exists in a place that assumes the absence of an "October surprise" - an event that would shock the electorate in a way so as to call into question their core electoral assumptions. I've stated previously that I thought the August 31st U.S. military draw-down in Iraq would have a similar effect, causing the electorate to focus on Iraq and the Middle East. I still think that will happen, but not anywhere near the amount required to make the mid-terms anything but a referendum on the economy. Even at the height of the CNN-led frenzy over the Gulf Coast oil spill, only 18% of voters listed the spill as the most important issue facing the U.S.

Gallup's "Bottom Line" sums up the issue nicely:

Although the precise percentage of Americans mentioning economic concerns varies from month to month, these issues have dominated the public's consciousness for well over two years. This fact should serve as a sharp reminder to politicians and challengers involved in House and Senate races this fall; failure to address economic issues will be at the candidate's own peril.